


we used to be friends (a long time ago)

by damerons (noblydonedonnanoble)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Poe is in the Air Force and I am Unfortunately into it, also this is rated T but there is a spicy make out scene toward the end, for the ~story~, i did not expect it but I believe in letting fics guide you where they need to go
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:01:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28472796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noblydonedonnanoble/pseuds/damerons
Summary: Rey comes to the aid of an old high school friend who's convinced that her wife is cheating on her. Poe, Finn, and Rose get pulled along for the ride.[Veronica Mars AU]
Relationships: Finn & Rey (Star Wars), Finn/Rose Tico, Poe Dameron/Rey, Rey & Luke Skywalker
Comments: 11
Kudos: 25





	we used to be friends (a long time ago)

**Author's Note:**

> I was _really_ shooting to get this up before New Year's in my time zone, but it just didn't happen. So here is a New Year's Eve fic a day late.
> 
> You don't really need to know anything about Veronica Mars in order to understand what's happening here. If you _are_ familiar with the show, there will be some parallels/inspirations that I think will be pretty clear, but early on as I developed this concept, the backstories of my version of these characters found a life of their own.

Rey was surprised to discover a potential client in Luke’s office when she returned to Skywalker Investigations after her lunch break.

The two of them had been so certain that they would receive no New Year’s Eve business that they had nearly agreed not to go into the office at all, and even so, they’d agreed that they would probably leave for the day no later than 3. It was not that people stopped seeking out private investigators around holidays—in Luke’s heyday, he’d done some of his most profitable work staking out New Year’s Eve rendezvous. People got _shameless_ this time of year, and P.I.s sure as hell benefited.

Unfortunately, they were not in Luke’s heyday. He didn’t have the same draw that he once did, and frankly, they weren’t bringing in enough clients to keep the doors open at all between Christmas and New Year’s. But Luke and Rey were both stubborn, and they were possibly maybe _slight_ workaholics.

For once, it seemed as though that had worked out to their advantage.

She knocked on Luke’s open door to announce her presence as she peeked in.

“Rey, welcome back!” Luke perked up at the sight of her. Gesturing across his desk at the client, he said, “The two of us were just reminiscing.”

The client’s head turned, and Rey was taken aback to see an old friend from high school. “Jannah, oh my God! I didn’t know you were back in town.”

Jannah had been one of Rey’s closest companions when they were teenagers, helping her to cause quite a bit of trouble alongside Finn and Rose. Rey couldn’t have really said what led them to fall out of touch; obviously plenty of high school friends drifted apart when they went away to different schools, and in retrospect, it was probably inevitable, because Rey, Finn, and Rose stayed local while Jannah went across the country. But for a few years, they’d been good about doing coffee dates on the occasions when they were in the same city. They’d made a _point_ of it, until they… didn’t, anymore. Rey had never been one to keep up with old friends on social media, so the loss of those coffee dates meant that that was… it.

But oh, was Rey happy to see her.

“Same goes to you! Last I heard, you were on your way to becoming a partner in a law firm. I wasn’t really expecting you to be here when I came knocking on your dad’s door.” She gave Rey a small smile. “You look happy, though.”

“Much happier than I would be at some corporate firm, even if we do have to water down our coffee,” Rey replied cheerfully. She strode around Luke’s desk and perched herself on the cabinet behind him. “I can’t imagine you’re too happy, though, if you came in to see Luke on New Year’s Eve.”

Jannah’s smile didn’t fade, not completely, but something of the joy in her expression still disappeared in an instant. She looked between Luke and Rey hesitantly before saying, “Yeah, I… I’d already told Luke a little bit about it. God, I feel so paranoid even saying it.” Jannah sighed and looked down at the floor, rubbing her forehead with her fingers. “I got married a little under a year ago, and I’m already convinced that she’s cheating on me.”

“Oh, no.” Rey’s face fell. “What an asshole.”

Under his breath, Luke muttered, “Rey.”

Yeah, yeah, they agreed to keep the color commentary to themselves, but Jannah was an old friend. It was different.

“No, I like her honesty,” Jannah reassured him with a chuckle. “She’s _not_ an asshole, that’s the thing I hate. I’ve known her for almost five years, and we dated for about three, and I had _no_ reason to think that anything was wrong. But she’s been so distant lately, and she’s got this one co-worker who I always thought seemed a little too friendly, and lately she’s just been… too friendly back. We’re throwing a New Year’s party tonight and I just found out this morning that she decided to invite him even after we made a whole guest list and decided _not_ to include him… It was just the last straw.”

Rey crossed her arms and glanced at Luke, waiting to see whether he was going to steer the ship, but he nodded for her to go on. “How can we help, Jannah?”

“I just need to know that I’m not crazy. I’ve never hired a P.I. before, I don’t know exactly what I can expect from this, but I’d heard that your dad’s business was still open, so I just thought…” She shrugged vaguely. “Maybe he could look into it.”

Luke looked over toward Rey with a cheerful smile. “I’ve got an even better idea.”

Oh, she did not like the sound of that.

“Anything, please,” Jannah replied.

“Go on home and tell your wife that you ran into Rey, your old friend from high school, and you just _had_ to invite her to the party. Rey can come and scope out the vibe between your wife and the work client, maybe snoop around on her computer… All that good stuff.”

Before Jannah could respond, Rey was now the person to sternly mutter, “ _Luke_. I have plans with Poe, Finn, and Rose.” Raising her voice, she said to Jannah, “I’m sorry, I thought he shook his habit of trying to invite me to other people’s shindigs back when I was in elementary school.”

“No, no, that’s completely fine.” Jannah hesitated, looking between Luke and Rey for a moment. “You should totally come, Rey. Them too. I’ve felt weird about reaching out to people from high school since I came back, but being able to catch up with everyone honestly sounds like the perfect way to distract myself from my probably-cheating wife.”

“Would that work for you, Rey?”

She hesitated. Not because she was reluctant to agree—she still thought of Jannah often and was absolutely interested in having her old friend back in her life, and if it were a normal night, a normal party, she would have jumped to go in a heartbeat to look into whoever was stupid enough to cheat on Jannah. But she had had the same New Year’s ritual with Poe, Finn, and Rose since she returned home five years before, and it felt unfair to ask them to disrupt it so that she and Luke could make a bit of money. Even if it was for an old friend.

“Let me check with everyone else,” Rey said at last.

Clearing out of the room, she texted their group chat, trying to give a succinct explanation of Jannah’s predicament.

 _Pretending that I know more than three people?_ Finn replied almost at once. _I’m in._

Rose’s answer came quickly after. _Fine with me! Tell Jannah I can’t wait to see her again!!_

And last – Rey knew he’d been scheduled to have meetings all afternoon and wasn’t supposed to have his phone on him, so she was frankly lucky to catch him during lunch – Poe: _I’ll go wherever you want me, Sunshine_.

No, she most certainly was not blushing a bit as she stepped back into the office. Jannah was giving Luke more info on both her wife and the client that she was suspicious of, and Rey knew that he would begin to do the necessary internet snooping as soon as Jannah cleared out.

“We’re good to go,” she announced.

“Oh, I’m so glad.” Jannah looked to Luke. “Do you need anything else from me right now?”

He shook his head. “I think we’ve got everything. Based on what Rey finds or doesn’t find at the party, we can discuss whether you’d like to continue using our services beyond this evening, but we’re all set for now.”

Jannah rose to her feet, giving Rey a cheerful smile. “I really am pleased that you’re coming. I was so convinced that I was going to be miserable all night, but now I get to catch up with all of you.” Nodding back toward Luke, she said, “I gave Luke my cell number. Go ahead and text me and I can give you our address, alright?”

“Sounds good,” Rey agreed.

For a moment, Jannah appraised her. “Still not a hugger?”

Luke snorted, which Rey tried to ignore while she grimaced and apologetically told her, “Not… really, no.”

Her old friend was unfazed. “No worries. See you around 8, alright? And it was great to see you, Luke!”

“You too!” he called after her. He and Rey had barely been left alone when he asked, “Your old friend, our first paying customer in a week, wants to give you a hug, and you say no?”

“What is it that you think our customers are paying for, old man?” Rey retorted with raised eyebrows. She claimed the chair that Jannah had just vacated, looking across the desk at Luke. He was one to talk, although she wasn’t going to call that out—it had been over 20 years since Rey’s parents died and he took her in, but even in all that time, she could count on one hand the number of people that he took his walls down enough to even consider a _hug_. And his sister, his nephew, and Rey were all on the list.

“I apologize for the friendship matchmaking,” he offered gently, instead of bothering with a response.

She shook her head and waved this off. “Don’t worry about it. This is a great opportunity for me to snoop without Jannah having to get her wife out of the house, and the others can be look-outs and distractions. You’ve got this detective thing down pat.”

“Considering I’ve been at it this long, I should hope so.”

God, the only person worse than Rey at taking compliments was Luke.

“Want me to look into the wife and the possible boyfriend?” Rey asked, nodding toward Luke’s notes. “You could head out.”

“No, no, I got this. _You’re_ the one who should probably take the rest of the day. Figure out what you’re going to wear.”

Rey frowned. “Figure out what I’m going to _wear_? I don’t think I need 7 hours to get dressed.”

“Maybe not to get dressed, but based on what I know about your wardrobe, I think you might need to do a little shopping.” At Rey’s vacant expression, he continued, “You missed Jannah telling me who her wife _is_ , Rey. You can double-check with her, but I’m pretty sure this party is going to be black-tie.”

Well. Of her friends, she was going to have the most trouble with that dress code, but that was still going to be some fun news to spring on them after they’d already agreed.

* * *

It was nearly 6:30 when Poe got home that evening, despite the fact that he had left as soon as possible. Even on a good day, they lived about an hour’s drive from Yavin Air Force Base, and he’d called Rey halfway through his commute to grumble about the pile-up that evening that had made it even worse. Despite his frequent griping, it didn’t even occur to him to live closer to the base; he lived quite close to their hometown even before Rey returned because he wanted to maintain closer proximity to his dad, so it had felt quite natural for them to settle down there once it became clear that they were falling into something serious—permanent.

But goodness, did he forget that sometimes when the traffic got particularly bad.

“Jesus _Christ_ ,” he exclaimed almost as soon as he’d shut the front door.

“You’re right, ‘Honey, I’m home,’ was old and tired,” Rey called back. She heard him laugh as he strode through the house, following the route that she knew he followed every day: first the coat closet, then the kitchen to grab a glass of water. Then, since she was in their bedroom, up the stairs to see her.

As he went through this process, he was still grousing about the pile-up that they’d already discussed. “You’d understand if you saw it, babe. This was one of the worst accidents I’ve gotten stuck behind in _years_. They had to block off half the freeway, and the rubbernecking was outrageous, and have I mentioned how much I _hate_ traffic helicopters?”

She smiled at her own reflection in the mirror. “On occasion.”

“I _really_ hate them,” he offered. “They have no respect for the airspace above the freeway, so they always end up getting too close and everyone slows down to get a better look at _them_ , too.” From near the top of the stairs, she could hear him take in a deep breath. “Okay, I’m done, sorry. Traffic is bull shit.” A few beats as he walked across the landing and reached their doorway. “Uh.”

Rey had not been home for very long—it was uncanny, how difficult it was to find an appropriate evening gown that didn’t cost nearly a month’s paycheck. But she was already dressed and sitting on the floor in front of their bedroom mirror to do her make-up, and she turned her attention from her eyeliner to Poe’s reflection. He’d frozen in place, staring at her.

“I know, it’s not very me,” she told him apologetically.

“That is the _furthest_ thing from what I meant.” Poe took a few steps into the room, and Rey watched in the mirror as his gaze swept over her. “You’re… this is what I’ve missed out on each time you’ve made me go to all of my formal events alone?”

She turned to look at him, biting her lip tentatively. “You like it? I couldn’t quite decide…”

“ _Like_ it?” he echoed. He reached out a hand. “C’mere, Sunshine.”

Rey rose to her feet, trying not to feel too self-conscious about the fact that one of her eyes remained unlined when she took hold of his hand. He pursed his lips into a smirk as he guided her to spin in front of him, showing off the rich red evening gown that she had finally settled on. It was a steal, yet it had still probably cost too much. “If your plan was to be inconspicuous so that you could properly snoop on Jannah’s wife all evening, I think you failed.”

“Quiet, Flyboy,” Rey murmured, a blush spreading down her face and neck.

“Never.” Poe pulled her closer and she fell into it easily as he kissed her, his lips soft and warm against hers. He leaned back after a few seconds, his eyes still mostly closed and an easy smile spreading across his face. “And if you think that you’ll be able to keep sending your regrets to my superiors each time we’re invited to a function, you’re kidding yourself.”

She scoffed and rolled her eyes at him before returning to the mirror. “Right, because the dress code would have been the only thing that made me look out of place at all of your officers’ events.” There had been more than one occasion when Poe had introduced her to a fellow officer and, within ten minutes, they had asked her why she _bothered_ to work as a P.I. The implication that, if she made so little money, she and Poe might as well be living only on his income alone.

And hell, they hadn’t been _wrong_ about her income, but it was bull shit of them to assume.

Poe had shut them down quickly, but Rey still smarted from it enough that she limited the Air Force members she interacted with to whoever Poe invited into their home. Only then did she trust that they were good people.

“Looking like that, I think you could tell them you’re a sewage worker and they wouldn’t care.”

More to her reflection than to Poe, she mused, “Sewage workers actually make pretty good money.”

He chuckled and squeezed past her – settled his hands on her bare shoulders to squeeze past her, despite the fact that they both knew he did not need to – so that he could get into their closet. “I understand why this is so last-minute, but I wish Jannah had come to your dad yesterday so that I could have set out my uniform before I left this morning.”

Rey smirked to her reflection. “It’s on the bed, babe. I pulled it out before I went shopping.”

Poe had been so focused on how she looked that he hadn’t noticed his entire mess dress uniform spread out across the bed, waiting for him. That was more than a little flattering.

“Oh, I love you.” He bent down and pressed a kiss to the crown of her head. “Do I have enough time to shower and shave?”

“If you’re quick.”

“I will be the quickest.” Rey glanced up at his face in the mirror once more and saw the way he was drinking her in. She raised her eyebrows. “Don’t look at me like that, I don’t know whether I’ll be able to get back into this dress once I’m out of it.”

He scoffed and turned toward their master bath, grazing his fingers across her skin one last time as he went. “You don’t always know what I’m thinking.”

Yes, she really did, but she didn’t say that. Instead: “Moments like this, I do.”

Poe was attentive to Rey’s request that he hurry, and soon enough, he was out of the shower. She’d finished with her make-up, and not knowing quite what to do with herself, she’d leaned back against the mirror and pulled out her phone to read the info that Luke had managed to scrounge up on Jannah’s wife and the possible boyfriend.

“At what point do I get to find out who Jannah’s wife actually is?” Poe asked, almost as though he knew what Rey was reading up on. (Hell, he probably did—he knew her work routine by now just as intimately as she knew his. The P.I. instinct of accumulating information had a way of rubbing off.)

“Oh, have I not mentioned?”

Poe raised his eyebrows at her, and she swallowed—partially because he wasn’t wrong, but also because he was standing before her in only his underpants and _look_ , she was only human, even though she stood by what she said about that dress. He processed where her mind was at at once and said, “Hey, mind out of the gutter, Sunshine.”

She repeated his words back at him quite nonchalantly. “You don’t always know what I’m thinking.”

And he grinned as he pulled his pants on. “Moments like this, I do.”

Touché.

Returning to Poe’s question, Rey told him, “It just feels weirdly like gossiping, when it’s someone we know with someone so… high-profile.”

He hummed. “I was wondering whether it was something like that. Who is it, a politician? A musician?”

“It’s, um…” Rey hesitated. “Parna Phasma.”

“The three-time _Oscar winner_ , Parna Phasma?”

Yeah, so Poe was something of a fan. Phasma had made her career largely by transitioning from a very successful theater career to acting primarily in action films, and rather than killing or at least diluting her success, the shift had actually come to elevate the prestige of any action film that she was willing to attach her name to. Combine that with the fact that she put a face to all of the bad ass women in combat and service positions, and Poe had avidly followed her career essentially from the moment he joined the Air Force.

“Mhm, that… would be the one. It seems like either Phasma or her team is pretty committed to the glass closet, because there’s no real evidence of the marriage anywhere online. Luke found the marriage certificate, of course, you know him, but other than that, not much of anything.” Rey flinched, glancing between her phone and Poe. “And I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s cheating.”

“No…” he breathed, drawing the word out until the sound petered out. “She’s a shit person?”

Rey grimaced. “Most actors are shit people.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I do, I do.” Rey hesitated, remembering what Jannah had said back at Skywalker Investigations. “Jannah told me and Luke that she never had any concerns about their relationship before this, but based on what Luke’s been able to find… I’m just a little surprised. Her team’s pretty good about killing her scandals before they really gain traction, but there’s still plenty of dirt on her that’s not hard to find. If Jannah’s surprised by this, then either Phasma’s really changed her tune since they met, or Jannah was… just trying not to see the bad things.”

Honestly, if she was going to bet money on one or the other, the answer seemed obvious, and she knew that Poe knew it, too. He sighed heavily and shook his head. “Damn. Don’t meet your heroes. Or I guess, don’t… find out that a girl you went to high school with married one of your heroes and is now being cheated on by said hero.”

“That is a bit more of a mouthful, though,” Rey mused. After a moment’s thought, she pointed out, “Also, don’t forget that you still _will_ be meeting her. And she might not be cheating! Don’t go into meeting her thinking that she’s cheating.”

“Even though you just told me that you think she might be cheating.”

Rey really needed to keep those things to herself until she was a bit more certain. But like Luke, she liked to think that she’d done this job long enough that she had an instinct for these sorts of things. Her gut was rarely ever wrong, and Poe knew it.

Graciously, Poe changed the subject to lighter fare. “Hey, at least the old gang gets a reunion.”

Yes, Rey had been leaning into that thought quite a bit to get herself through the day. It came with its own sort of weird—while Rey had mentioned Poe as a part of her New Year’s Eve plans and Jannah had not excluded him from the invitation, the two of them hadn’t particularly gotten along at the time. In fact, he had occupied almost an entirely different social sphere for the duration of their time in school, save for the persistent flirtatious orbit that he and Rey seemed to find themselves in. Finn and Rose had been relatively neutral about it, but Jannah had vehemently not approved.

In retrospect, Rey couldn’t blame her. Poe had been a cocky pain in the ass in high school. At the time, she’d liked the confidence, and she’d also suspected that he’d grow out of it (for the most part). She’d been correct (also for the most part), but she still didn’t quite know what sort of impression he’d make on Jannah now.

Still. They were all adults, and Rey firmly believed that Poe could charm anyone, particularly in his mess dress.

It had been awhile since he last attended a function formal enough to necessitate it, and she took it in with a grin as she rose to her feet to help him with his bowtie. She didn’t even need to say anything before he held the tie out to her—this was routine, and they both loved it.

While Rey was straightening the bowtie, Poe asked, “What if the dress stays _on_?”

Rey smirked, and she did not look at his face, because she wasn’t sure what she would do if she got a glimpse of his expression. “Later, Flyboy.”

* * *

The place was fucking _enormous_.

Just at the sight of it, Rey felt relieved that she and Poe had picked up Finn and Rose on their way to the party, because she wasn’t sure how they would have possibly been able to find each other if they hadn’t gotten a glimpse of each other before venturing into the crowd.

Poe felt very fancy turning his car key over to a valet, and he whispered as much into Rey’s ear as they strode up the drive toward the house, making her giggle.

By the time Rey was a teenager, she had become accustomed enough to seeing and meeting celebrities that it didn’t faze her anymore, but she still felt a clear difference in experiencing them like this, when they were putting on a show for each other. Only about half of the faces were even remotely recognizable—based on the way the others carried themselves _around_ the famous people, Rey suspected that plenty of them worked in publicity with Jannah, and she wouldn’t have been surprised if plenty of them were also behind-the-scenes friends of Phasma.

(The tabloids loved to hype up her _genuine_ and _real_ friendships with the crews on her films, but from Luke found, there seemed to be some truth to it. At least five of them were people who it seemed like she’d probably slept with, but there was truth to it.)

Finn and Rose didn’t exactly frequent these sorts of events themselves, but they were still fairly in their element; the two of them ran a non-profit that – thanks to their high school and college contacts who’d gone on to do things in Hollywood – had become a popular, well-respected charitable organization for celebrities to donate to. Almost as soon as they walked through the door, Rose caught sight of a television actor that they’d done a charity drive with a year before, and she eagerly rushed over to greet him, pulling Finn along with her.

“And then there were two,” Poe whispered.

Jannah had promised that she would hang near the door so that she could make a point of showing Rey around the party before guiding her to Phasma’s office, but as Rey cast her eyes around the spacious vestibule and into the connecting rooms, she caught no sight of her old friend.

Plenty of people were _looking_ at them, and based on their expressions, at least Rey and Poe didn’t appear like interlopers. Most of them were taking them in and probably thinking precisely the sorts of things that Poe had murmured against her shoulder when he kissed it before helping her to pull her coat on; precisely the sorts of things that Rey had tucked toward the back of her mind to tell him later, because if she told him just what she wanted to do to him in that uniform, they might not have been able to get out of the house even with the promise of a paying gig.

“Rey! Hi!”

Jannah cleared a path through the crowd, and suddenly the strangers were pointedly _not_ looking at them. Rey couldn’t help but smile—strangers could be simultaneously so nosy and so desperate to not appear nosy.

“Hi, Jannah,” she replied, grinning cheerfully. “I know we’ve only seen the entranceway, but everything looks amazing. Rose and Finn wandered off that way to say hi to someone, but they’re around.”

“I can’t wait to see them.” Jannah grinned at Rey for a beat before shifting to look at Poe. “Damn, Dameron, you’ve cleaned up since high school.”

“Mostly because of this one,” he offered, nudging Rey with his elbow.

Rey pursed her lips, just barely suppressing a smirk. “I think it was a joint effort between me and the Air Force. If he wanted to become an officer and get up in the air, he knew he had to clean up his act a little bit. I just nudged him along. And by the time he made colonel last year, that was all him.”

She threw in that last bit just to make him blush—he knew how much she loved to casually drop his rank into conversation, because it thrilled her to see the immediate respect that he received from almost everyone who learned of it.

“Well, I support it.” Jannah nodded approvingly at Poe. “I assume you’re at Yavin? My dad was actually stationed there, he was a major general by the time he retired.”

Poe’s eyes widened. “I should have made the connection! Major General Calrissian is still a _legend_ around the base, a lot of the older officers have great stories about him.”

As Jannah led them into the house, she and Poe continued to discuss the Air Force and her father, and Rey smiled to herself. Yes, Poe could charm anyone.

* * *

They eventually joined back up with Finn and Rose, and it was only then that Jannah pulled them through the party to meet Parna Phasma.

Gently put, it was awkward.

More _frankly_ put, it was an absolute nightmare. Rey was unnerved by how dismissive she was of all four of them. Even Poe got the cold shoulder, despite her reputation for being incredibly deferential toward members of the armed forces. Rey had to work very hard to refrain from giving the actress a piece of her mind when she watched Poe wilting as he realized how indifferent she was toward them all.

If this were any other moment, any other person, oh _God_ , would Rey have had a lot to say. They’d been there for less than half an hour, and twenty people had already stopped Poe to thank him for his service. Admittedly, it was a practice that Rey was deeply skeptical of, and it made Poe more than a little uncomfortable, but it was a courteous gesture from absolute strangers, and Phasma wouldn’t even give him the time of day?

Yes, Rey found herself increasingly certain that Jannah was seeing only the parts of her wife that she wanted to see.

* * *

“I feel like we’re back in high school,” Finn told Rey.

He was playing look-out while Rey searched Phasma’s computer and office, peering out at the hall through the cracked door.

“Technically, back in high school, I mostly roped you into grabbing student files through your handy dandy office job,” Rey pointed out, looking up at her friend and chuckling as he rolled his eyes. “But yes, I remember your look-out talents being pretty above average.”

“Above average,” he scoffed. “The number of times that you would’ve been expelled or charged for trespassing if it weren’t for me…”

“Point taken.” Rey squinted at the computer screen, taking in a folder in Phasma’s emails that had a strangely garbled group of letters as its only label. Well, suffice it to say that she’d copy that folder over to a USB drive. She couldn’t really decide whether she was hoping to learn that that Phasma _was_ having an affair; obviously it would devastate Jannah, but the more she was learning about Phasma, the more she wanted Jannah to get the hell out of this marriage, even if no adultery was happening.

“Is it weird, seeing Jannah again?”

“Hmm? Why would it be?”

Rey gave Finn a look, and he sighed, shrugging before looking back out into the hall. “Maybe a little bit. But that was a long time ago. We never even dated, not really, and we were pretty drunk that time we kissed. Then she got all distant, and Rose and I got together, so I-- it’s been a few years since I even really thought about her. About that.”

“About being half in love with her for four years.”

“About that, yeah.”

Rey hummed to herself. The part of her that longed for Phasma to be a cheater also found her brain circling around knowledge that Jannah had told Rey in confidence the summer after their first year of college—that she had had crushes on both Rose and Finn at various points during high school. It had taken most of that first year away to get over them both.

But she was there to be a private investigator, not to meddle or matchmake. (Despite the fact that Luke seemed to consider that part of the P.I.’s job description.)

* * *

Upon finding nothing overtly incriminating during a cursory search of Phasma’s computer, Rey decided that she was going to join her friends in mingling through the party for a little while before going to search Jannah and Phasma’s bedroom. Jannah had been surprised when Rey mentioned that she’d probably search there—“Do you really think that’s she’d leave anything somewhere I might be able to find it?”

For a lot of reasons, yes. Partially because, based on Rey’s impression of the couple’s dynamic, it seemed like Phasma might not _care_ much about getting caught if she had an affair. But the other part of it, which Rey _did_ tell Jannah: “Sometimes partners think it’s safer to conceal things in plain sight.”

Rey was enjoying some _incredibly_ tasty profiteroles when she got a glimpse of the possible homewrecker for the first time that evening.

Armie Hux was an up-and-coming director, and as soon as Rey learned more about him, she understood what had Jannah so suspicious about his friendship with Phasma. Much of his success in film had been tied to Phasma’s projects; he’d directed or assistant directed on several of her movies, and based on the buzz that Luke was able to get ahold of, he pulled very little weight on his own in the industry. It made both Luke and Rey wonder what was in it for Phasma.

Of course, that didn’t explain why Jannah had only recently become suspicious of a possible affair, but hell, there were plenty of reasons why two people might flirt for years but avoid _doing_ anything about it until… until they did something about it. Rey and Poe could attest to that.

She grimaced at her friends and tried to nod vaguely toward him. They got the drift.

Poe squinted at Hux before looking back at Rey. The skepticism was all over his face. Quiet enough that only Rey, Finn, and Rose could hear, he said, “She’s running around with _that_ while Jannah’s at home?”

Rey shrugged. “Honestly, even with all of the cases that I’ve worked… sometimes I couldn’t tell you why people make the choices they do.”

* * *

Poe came with her to snoop through the bedroom. He, too, expressed some surprise that Rey thought it was worth it. “What if Phasma decides she needs…” He hesitated, glancing around the room to come up with any mediocre reason why they would be interrupted. “To fix her make-up,” he offered at last.

“We pretend that we came in here to make out,” Rey tells him, like it should have been obvious. “Has it really been so long since we last did this?”

“I mean, we did agree that it might look bad for an Air Force officer to get arrested for trespassing along with a private investigator.” Poe tilted his head at her. “Although you’ve now got me wondering what your plan was if you and _Finn_ got caught back in the office.”

“With Finn I pretend I’m _stupidly_ drunk. I start getting really into the books or art in the room. Once I went on a whole rant about Foucault and power. Jeez, it really _has_ been a long time since we’ve done this.”

Rey was busy feeling to see whether anything was taped to the underside of the dresser, so Poe had to say, “Hey, Sunshine.” She turned abruptly to look up at him. He was leaning against the doorframe and looking down at her with a soft smile. “I love you and your weird job.”

“I love you and _your_ weird job,” Rey replied.

Poe chucked.

She was almost certain that she was going to come up empty. Then she found a loose slot in the baseboard in the closet.

“Oh, _jackpot_ ,” she whispered, upon discovering that the slot concealed a hole about the size of a brick. And tucked inside was a burner phone.

“Cheater?” Poe whispered back. There was no noise outside, no indication that he _needed_ to whisper, but he was matching Rey’s level, and she appreciated it.

“Not sure yet, but she’s probably doing _something_ suspicious.” Rey emerged from the closet and rose to her feet, showing Poe the burner. “This was hidden in the wall.”

Poe inhaled sharply, cringing. “I suddenly find myself hoping that she’s _only_ cheating, and that phone isn’t being used for some other nefarious… things.”

Rey gave Poe a sympathetic frown, and she hesitated for a moment, trying to determine whether she should say something to address the fact that, in the past four hours, he had lost _all_ respect that he had for the woman who had been his favorite actress. But despite the fact that it was undoubtedly on his mind, Poe seemed to decide that it could wait, because he gestured her on. “Check out whether there’s anything useful on there, go on.”

It took what felt like an eternity for the phone to boot up, but once it did, Rey went first to the contacts.

None listed.

But under the previous calls… One number. _A lot_ of one number.

“Rose still has her phone, right?”

“I think so.”

Rey nodded and pulled her own phone out of her clutch.

“Any updates?” Rose asked by way of greeting.

“Maybe.” Rey glanced down at the burner, turning it over in her hands. “Are you anywhere near the maybe-boyfriend right now?”

“Kinda close. Why?”

“I found a burner phone that’s only been used for a shit ton of outgoing calls to one number. I want to see if they’re stupid enough for it to be his.”

Rose laughed on the other end of the line. “Got it. Call away, I’ll keep an eye out.”

Biting her lip nervously, Rey redialed the unknown number.

One ring. Then two.

“He’s going into his pocket!” Rose whispered. “Oh, Rey, he’s _absolutely_ looking at his phone. And he looks confused as hell.”

The call was sent to voicemail.

“Did he answer?” Rey asked.

“No, he just put it away. And… now he’s looking around.”

Rey grimaced, already shutting the burner off. “Sounds about right. Thanks Rose, we’ll see you in a little bit.”

She’d barely hung up her phone and turned back toward the closet when she said, “You should probably take your jacket off.”

“I should… what?”

“Take your jacket off.” Rey slid the phone back into the wall and covered the hole with the baseboard again. “We’re going to have company in a minute or two and it should probably look like we’ve been at it for a while.”

Poe flat-out _giggled_ when he realized that she was serious—when her hands reached for his bowtie to undo the precise work that she’d done a few hours before, and she leaned in to press her lips to his. He fell into it at once, shucking his jacket and dropping it onto the bed before pulling Rey close, as she knew he’d longed to all evening. She pushed him back against the bed and he took the cue at once, falling onto it and laying back, pulling her along with a happy sigh.

Rey straddled his hips and returned to kissing him with vigor. She pressed her tongue into his mouth at the same moment that she ground her pelvis against his, and when he groaned into her mouth, she felt a little thrill in her gut and a longing to keep going. A longing to be back home so that she could strip his uniform off piece by piece and ride him and call him ‘colonel’ to make him cum.

She fumbled with the buttons of his shirt and oh _God_ did she want to see all of his soft, olive skin. She wanted to smooth her fingers over his muscles. She wanted to kiss him all over. She’d wanted it since he got out of the shower, since he’d _looked_ at her like that in her dress, even, and it ached for him to be so close like this but to _not_ be pressing kisses along his collarbone, his chest, his stomach…

Poe’s hands, she abruptly realized, were fumbling at her sides, and she understood at once. “Left side,” she breathed. Then a moment later, “My left, babe.”

He found the zipper and pulled. His fingers dipped beneath the fabric – he still had enough presence of mind not to try to remove it, it seemed – and they danced across her skin. Barely, just barely, his thumb grazed her nipple—

The door to the room burst open, and the light clicked on, and Rey and Poe pulled apart in unison.

“What the _hell_ are you doing?” Phasma exclaimed.

Rey made a show of how breathless she was, but it wasn’t a lie, not really. She wasn’t sure whether she should move—her instinct was to stumble to her feet, but she could feel Poe’s erection beneath her and wasn’t sure whether he’d be embarrassed. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry. We were—” She faltered when she felt Poe nudging her waist, and she glanced at him quickly, taking in his expression and the slight tilt of his head.

So she scrambled out of his lap and stood up, rushing to clean herself up. “I mean, you saw him earlier. I just couldn’t resist any longer.”

Phasma stood in the doorway, and she _stared_ at them. At Rey zipping her dress back up and fixing her hair; at Poe, who’d also stood up and begun to button up his shirt. For a _flash_ of a moment, Rey saw her gaze shift to the closet before focusing on Rey and Poe again.

“Call me old-fashioned,” she said at last. “But I don’t really like strangers fucking in my house, let alone in my bedroom. Please get back to the party.”

Poe cleared his throat and awkwardly asked, “Could I at least… have a minute, here?”

God, Rey loved him.

“No.”

That sounded about right, yeah.

* * *

“I’m not _positive_ yet if she’s cheating,” Rey told her carefully. “It might be something else. But whatever it is, it’s… not good.” A pause. “And it’s probably cheating. She also probably knows you’re onto her, and based on everything, I don’t think it’ll be too difficult for you to get the truth out of her.”

Jannah nodded slowly, looking between Rey and Poe. “Is it weird that I’m mostly just relieved?”

“Not weird in the slightest.” Rey offered her friend a tentative smile. “Honestly, so am I.”

“That… is fair.” Jannah’s brow furrowed, and she looked over to Poe apologetically. “I can’t believe I spent years being suspicious of you, and you turned into _this_ , meanwhile I’ve wasted the same amount of time on an asshole.”

“You had some valid objections to Poe, though, at the time,” Rey pointed out, earning an elbow to her rib.

Poe’s words were kinder. Sometimes, Rey felt like that was one of Poe’s primary jobs—to be kinder when she was just a little too blunt. “Plus our pickers are never as good for ourselves as for the people we love.”

“Isn’t that the truth,” Jannah murmured. She sighed heavily. “Well, hey. At least this all got us back into touch.”

Rey’s eyes lit up. “Hell yeah, it did! And hey, maybe you could join us, Finn, and Rose for a movie night sometime in the next few weeks. We started doing them weekly again.”

“That honestly sounds really, really great.”


End file.
